Morphemes in “friendships”
“friendships” has 3 morphemes: friend + -ship + -s.
friend
root
+
ship
suffix
+
s
suffix
Spelling changes when the parts join: the boxes show the letters as written; the morphemes themselves are friend + -ship + -s.
Each morpheme explained
| Morpheme | Type | Free / bound | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| friend | free root | free | a person you know well and regard with affection and trust |
| -ship | derivational suffix | bound | state, position or skill of |
| -s | inflectional suffix | bound | plural (nouns) / third-person singular present (verbs) |
How the word is built
friend → friendship → friendships
Each step adds one affix to the word before it; the root “friend” is where the chain starts.
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Segmentation derived from MorphyNet (Batsuren, Bella & Giunchiglia, 2021; CC BY-SA 3.0, built from Wiktionary), with hand-written affix glosses and root meanings from WordNet. Reviewed for classroom use; tell us if you spot an error.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many morphemes are in "friendships"?
"friendships" has three morphemes: friend + -ship + -s.
How do you break "friendships" into morphemes?
friend + -ship + -s. The root is "friend"; -ship is a derivational suffix, -s is a inflectional suffix.
What is the root word of "friendships"?
The root of "friendships" is "friend", built up as friend → friendship → friendships.
Is this morphology tool free?
Yes. The Fixie morphological analyzer is free with no signup and runs in your browser.